


Matter

by RhineGold



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fic, rockslides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29704599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhineGold/pseuds/RhineGold
Summary: Colonel Young contemplates after a planetary excursion ends in tragedy.
Relationships: Nicholas Rush & Everett Young
Kudos: 2





	Matter

**Author's Note:**

> Written based on a prompt from Hades. 
> 
> Warning for character death and description of injury. 
> 
> Written in 2012.

Ironically, it was a rockslide. 

Maybe irony isn’t the right word. You’ve never been good with words, preferring instead to rely on what you can say with your body, your actions, your hands. 

The moment will forever be imprinted on your mind - his face as he turned towards you, brows drawn up in a quizzical expression as his shoulders half-followed. Eli had shouted to him, just his name, with a question mark attached standing just to your left. He looks at Eli, but his eyes quirk to yours, and his mouth is open in a half-smile. It’s a beautiful day, a beautiful planet, and the sun looks good on all of you. 

His hair is loose around his face in the strong wind and he shakes it back with a flick of his chin. His reply is lost in the sudden sound, a roar that you feel in your feet, in your legs. 

And just as he was standing there, suddenly he is not. 

You’re the one to find him, digging through the rubble, shouting his name as the sun beats down, merciless now. He is still breathing, but only just, but his hair is matted with blood and his skull… 

And now you sit, hands clasped in your lap, a silent vigil in the infirmary. TJ is gone, long after you last insisted, leaving you to your staring at the wall. You cannot look at his face. 

It is intact, his face - perfect, with barely any scratches, and his eyes are open, wide and staring. Something chemical glistens in the corners, TJ’s attempt at some comfort (perhaps hers more so than his, really). He stares at the ceiling, but the expression is blank. There is no understanding in those dark eyes, no reason. 

Rush is gone. 

His body breathes. His eyes are open. His heart is pumping, lungs circulating air. But his brain… His mind… You knew, all of you, before TJ even began the scans. Your sleeve is dry now, but still dark with the reminders of your attempt to hold together the man’s skull as you carried him to the Gate. Rush’s legs over one arm and his brains on the other and you all knew, all of you, that it was too late. 

One moment he was standing in the sun, wind in his hair, wearing his over-large fatigues and a smile on his lips, and the next… The next he was gone. 

You know what you’ll do before you leave this room. 

You’ve done it before, only that time, it was a request. But you know Rush, perhaps better than anyone, and you know what he would ask of you now. 

His eyes are brown, not blue, and they will not focus on you, will not fill with tears and sorrow and understanding. Rush will never understand anything, ever again. But you know he would have asked you for this. 

But not just yet.

For now, you wait. Hands in your lap, staring at the wall. 

It may be greater, you think to yourself, but it is never, never good.

**Author's Note:**

> I've heard a rumor that Tumblr is starting to delete blogs with pornographic fiction so I'm migrating my fiction blog's works here.


End file.
